Manuel Valls uses payouts to nip student movement

That was the message from French Prime Minister Manuel Valls Monday, as he unveiled €500 million in subsidies for students and young workers amid youth-led protests against his government’s reform plans.

After a meeting with student unions, Valls’ office said the government would extend new grants to low-income students, act as a guarantor for people under 30 trying to rent apartments and raise taxes on short-term “CDD” job contracts to incite firms to hire young people on long-term contracts.

Valls and President François Hollande are eager to recapture the support of disappointed youth, one year before a presidential election. Thousands of students joined protests Saturday against plans to overhaul France’s labor code, while a separate nighttime sit-in movement, known as “La Nuit Debout” (“Up All Night”), has spread to several cities since it started in Paris on March 31.

“These are measures that respond to the concerns of young people at the start of their professional careers,” said William Martinet, head of the UNEF student union that has been organizing protests against the proposed labor code reform. “So it’s a very good answer in that sense.”

However, Martinet added that the plan did not remove students’ concerns about the labor bill, which aims to ease hiring-and-firing rules in order to stimulate the labor market. The bill has already been watered down following a slew of protests — to such a degree that the head of the MEDEF employers’ lobby said Monday he no longer supported it.

Protesters rallied Saturday against the labor bill in several cities, but the turnout was lower than for previous demonstrations.

No more vegetable garden

Hollande’s Socialist government is trying to mend fences with traditional left-wing supporters in the final year of his term.

With March data showing that France lowered its budget deficit in 2015 faster than expected, Hollande and Valls have begun what a spokesman called the “redistribution” phase of his presidency — or extending taxpayer largesse to various groups.

In March, Hollande pledged €2 billion to increase wages for public sector workers, a crucial demographic for the Socialist party.

Now the government is targeting young voters, many of whom voted for Hollande but have been disappointed by a president whom they accuse of betraying left-wing values.

While subsidies may bring Socialist-affiliated student unions into line, they are unlikely to end another headache for the government: the “Nuit Debout” sit-in movement, which has seen hundreds of volunteers take over public places in several cities to hold nighttime debates, party and, recently, plant a vegetable garden.

The movement, styled after Spain’s “Indignados,” so far has no political affiliation and no precise agenda.

In Paris, participants who are mostly from the capital itself gather on the Place de la République and take part in semi-formal debates where each person is allowed three minutes’ speaking time. Discussions range from feminism to the Panama Papers tax evasion scandal to the disputed labor bill.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Labour minister Myriam El-Khomri, first and second from left in the background, prior to a meeting with delegates of students opposed to the government’s planned labour reform | Patrick Kovarik/AFP via Getty Images

The movement’s name comes from the fact that people gather in the evenings and have to evacuate the square each morning at 5 a.m.

Early Monday, the movement suffered a setback when police officers ordered makeshift structures dismantled and removed.

Politicians are keeping a close eye on the grassroots movement, with far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, ex-socialist presidential hopeful Pouria Amirshahi and others all paying low-key visits.

“The youth of France is back!” tweeted centrist politician Jean-Lassalle, who is also a presidential hopeful, in a typical approving reaction.

Valls, however, is studiously avoiding the gathering. Last week, he spoke at an event organized just meters away from the sit-in, without ever acknowledging it.

Authors:

Related stories on these topics:

Tim Bond

Former Chancellor Schroeder in his resignation speech (year) stated that Germany would never follow the British example of welfare on demand by making it mandatory to find actual work. Generations on welfare was not an option; or affordable even in Germany.

British Minister Duncan Smith achieved some basic welfare reforms however social inequality has divided Britain like the USA. For France they too must find that formula because socialism in the old fashioned sense is now a lost cause. Getting the French people to accept that logic for change will require a government charm offensive and a reminder that France is almost in the same category as UK today; in a debt spiral.

Germany understands that France has failed to raise its game in recent years…time is running out.